Illinois Act Protecting “Lawful Reproductive or Gender Affirming Care” Doesn’t Shield World Prof. Ass’n for Transgender Health (WPATH) from Subpoena
From M.H. v. Adams, decided Friday by Magistrate Judge Keri L. Holleb Hotaling (N.D. Ill.):
In the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), Illinois enacted the Lawful Health Care Activity Act to ensure “that Illinois would remain a beacon of hope and an island for reproductive justice for all who seek it” and that “[a] medical decision should be made between a patient and their doctor—no one else.” The Act “[s]hields individuals in Illinois from subpoenas, summons, or extraditions related to lawful reproductive or gender affirming care in Illinois” and “[r]equires courts in Illinois to apply Illinois law in cases involving reproductive health care.”
In a case of first impression in federal court involving the Act, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (“WPATH”), an Illinois non-profit organization, invokes the Act and raises other arguments in response to a third-party subpoena … issued to it by the Director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare … relating to M.H. v. Smith et al., C.A. No. 22-409 (D. Idaho) (“the Underlying Action”). The Underlying Action involves two transgender Idahoans who sued directors of two Idaho departments of government challenging an Idaho Medicaid policy and state law that exclude coverage and/or the use of state funds for certain healthcare or procedures for transgender individuals. The plaintiffs in the Underlying Action rely upon WPATH’s promulgated standards of care for the treatment and health of transgender and gender diverse people to support their claims that the Idaho policy and law operate to deny them healthcare that is medically necessary.
WPATH moved to quash the subpoena, but the court concluded that the Act did not protect WPATH here:
WPATH is “a non-profit” and “international membership organization” whose “mission is to promote evidence-based care, education, research, public policy, and respect in transgender health.” “WPATH members engage in clinical and academic research to develop evidence-based medicine.” WPATH itself “establish[ed] and update[s] the WPATH Standards of Care (SOC) for the treatment and health of transgender and gender diverse people globally.” The “SOC articulate a professional consensus about the psychiatric, psychological, medical, and surgical management of transgender and gender diverse people.” Volunteer “medical experts every year” help WPATH “to understand the latest science,” and also “review and edit [WPATH] publications, educational materials, curriculum, and public statements.” …
WPATH contends the Act shields it from complying with the Subpoena. WPATH argues that, by creating and promulgating SOC for gender dysphoria, it engages in lawful health care activity as defined under the Act, and that the Act therefore protects against the Sub
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